Brad Cummings | Seeking mutual respect in divisive abortion debate

Have you noticed that no one ever wins in an abortion debate? It's why I've always tried to avoid the subject, especially among mixed political company.

With that in mind, this is not a column trying to change your mind on when life begins. I might as well try to convince you that unicorns are real and the new Smurfs movie is based on a true story. Instead, it is a plea for people of all stripes to consider the way they talk about abortion and other hotly debated topics. Our divisiveness is deep as a country and our approach to issues like abortion impedes any potential healing.

I'm pro-life and very proud to be so. After many years of consideration and even a secret desire to support what is deemed more popular in our culture, I can't get around the notion every fetus is a child with a right to live. Under no circumstances will the fetus become a toaster, a gerbil or an all-expenses paid trip to Australia. The baby will either survive its term, or not, but the decision shouldn't be ours to make.

Ultimately, the pro-choice argument logically doesn't make sense to me. If a drunk driver kills a pregnant woman, that's considered a double homicide. But if he misses her on her way to an abortion clinic, the doctor handling the operation is considered a hero by some. My brain must be too simple to understand the consistency here.

Most would consider this an even-tempered approach to a pro-life stance. Even if you don't agree with these conclusions, any rational person can at least respect how millions of fellow Americans have arrived at a similar stance. So imagine my surprise when I received the following email in response to a column several weeks ago not on abortion.

"Your party's 'support for involvement into our health care' begins and ends with regulating a woman's vagina." - President of the Brad Cummings fan club

Let's put aside that this above email was in response to my column three weeks ago about President Obama's failings on Obamacare. And let's ignore that this person is so singularly wrapped up in this issue that she sees everything through the prism of abortion rights.

I present this as an example of how much disdain we have allowed to build up for those on the other side of our political aisle. My anonymous friend has assigned motive to allow her anger to be justified. Only in a world in which rich, evil, white, Republican men gather in a smoke-filled room with an agenda titled "Regulate the Nether Regions of All Women" can her worldview work and so she takes no time to consider how others have reached an alternate viewpoint. Automatically believing pro-lifers are bad people is like a security blanket of sorts. The whole scene fits comfortably into her worldview.

It's easy to be outraged. I wouldn't bring up this example if there weren't countless instances of politicians, journalists and pro-choice advocates expressing similar thoughts about the pro-life movement on a frequent basis. In her defense, she's only parroting her thought leaders. Outrage has become the cheapest of political currency and so we spend it with reckless abandon.

It's much harder to develop a well-reasoned view on a difficult topic while owning the self-confidence in your own beliefs to have a loving attitude toward your political opposition. Why is it acceptable to call a pro-life person anti-woman when they only see the issue through the eyes of an unborn child who should have their own rights? Again, you may not agree with their conclusions, but to assault your fellow American as against women because they have a different definition of when life begins is destructive and irresponsible. Not to mention a bit immature.

Are there conservatives who have taken their pro-life stances to an unacceptable extreme? Anyone who bombs an abortion clinic deserves the full force of the law. Eight people have died in abortion clinic attacks over the years and while that's fewer than some would lead you to believe, those are eight people with spouses, parents and children. The people who planted the bombs are murderers. There's no moral ambiguity there.

The abortion bomber and the pro-life advocate are no more similar than the Nazi and the Socialist. There are crossover beliefs, but the make up of the person is wildly different. Yet that didn't stop pro-choice advocacy group NARAL when they sent out a press release stating Congressman Paul Ryan voted to let women die. So we are all on the same page, it's important to know the former vice-presidential candidate's official stance places him firmly against abortion except in cases where the mother's life is in danger.

Naturally, NARAL claimed that Ryan "supported the 'Let Women Die Bill,' which would allow hospitals to refuse to provide a woman emergency, lifesaving abortion care, even if she could die without it." The man whose one abortion exception was the life of the mother was attacked for wanting to let mothers die. Of course, the bill in question was not about letting women die but instead about Catholic hospitals not being forced to perform abortions. How can we ever hope to find common ground or mutual respect with this a part of our fabric? There are long-term, entrenched consequences to that brand of rhetoric.

Abortion is only one scab to pick. There are other issues that invite the worst of our inner devils to rise up just as easily. We are seemingly uncomfortable with political conversations lacking over-the-top conflict.

I don't pretend to be an expert on this issue (President Obama and I both believe it's above our pay grades), but I do expect my views on abortion or any other controversial issue to be respected. It seems like a reasonable request.

And a necessary one for our common good.

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Brad Cummings | Seeking mutual respect in divisive abortion debate

Have you noticed that no one ever wins in an abortion debate? It's why I've always tried to avoid the subject, especially among mixed political company.